The EDC Treaty and its Associated Protocols, Agreements and Declarations

Abstract

The last chapter described the dramatic series of events which led to the signing of the Contractual Agreements in Bonn on 26 May 1952 and of the Treaty establishing the European Defence Community in Paris on 27 May 1952. A number of other important related Treaties, Protocols, Agreements and Declarations were signed at the same time, and there were significant associated exchanges of letters at national government level. Such a plethora of documentation was the culmination of some 16 months of hard, involved work by M. Alphand’s Paris Conference of many committees, subcommittees and working groups, and by governments in capitals, not to mention the very important roles played on occasions by ministers in international conferences, particularly in the margins thereof. In view of the chequered history, particularly of the last months up to the moment of signing, it was something of a feat that the EDC Treaty and its related documents were in fact signed at all. Had the process not reached this conclusion, of course, the damage to European (and Atlantic) cohesion and to European security would have been incalculable.